


Like Any Other Beast

by Masu_Trout



Category: Vampyr (Video Game)
Genre: And a Lot of Equally-Uncomfortable Arousal, Blood Drinking, Feelings Realization, Hate to Vague Uncomfortable Acceptance, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Examination, Vampire Bites
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:26:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22082554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout
Summary: Inflicted with a wound that refuses to heal, Geoffrey McCullum is left with only two choices: he can give up and die, or he can ask Dr. Jonathan Reid, Pembroke's pet leech, for help.He's starting to wish he'd chosen death.
Relationships: Geoffrey McCullum/Jonathan Reid
Comments: 27
Kudos: 380
Collections: Happy Belated Treatmas 2019, New Year's Resolutions 2020





	Like Any Other Beast

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedevilchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts).



> Slightly late for Yuletide, but I hope you enjoy regardless!

Geoffrey cursed himself and God, the concept of leeches as a whole and the existence of one leech in particular, but in the end there was no help for it—he showed up at Pembroke Hospital one night just past midnight, scarf tied high around his neck and stakes strapped to every limb, glaring at the passing staff just as viciously as they glared at him.

It was no wonder they loathed him. From their perspective, he'd showed up a few months back, hauled their head doctor off and had him killed. Some part of him still chafed under their stares—he wanted to grab one of them and drag them upstairs, show them what their beloved, dearly departed Swansea had _truly_ done and what sort of creature that ornate office on the second floor held now—but he stilled his tongue. Normal citizens didn't understand Priwen's work, or the sacrifices they made to keep everyone ignorant of the horrors that lurked just outside the bounds of their small worlds. If the Guard did its job, they would stay ignorant.

God, he hated stepping foot in here. Almost as much as he hated the idea of asking a leech for help. Tonight was going to be wonderful.

At the front desk, he was stopped by a scowling woman. Her hands were tapping nervously against the desk and her stern look barely hid her fear, but she stood firm regardless. Geoffrey couldn't help but be impressed.

"Do you have an appointment, Mister..?"

"No appointment," he said, blithely ignoring that she wanted his name. "I'm just here to see Dr. Reid, is all."

"I'm afraid that's _not_ going to be possible. Dr. Reid is a very busy man—"

"Doing a lot of surgeries, I bet." Geoffrey grinned, leaning forward. "Spending a lot of time helping those poor, injured patients, tending to their wounds all alone in the surgical theatre—"

"That's enough."

Geoffrey grimaced and turned to see Reid standing on the stairs, staring down at him with a deeply unimpressed look in his pale eyes.

"Doctor," said the woman, "I was just asking this man to leave."

"Thank you, Nurse Branagan, but there's no need," Reed said. "If Mr. McCullum wishes to see me, I'm happy to give him an audience."

"Dr. Reid, this is the man—"

"I know," Reid interrupted gently, "but he's still a member of the community, regardless of any... other circumstances."

The woman—Nurse Branagan—shot Geoffrey a venomous look. Geoffrey ran one hand over the outline of the stake on his opposite wrist; he would have felt better about getting his way if Reid didn't look so _smug_ about it. Calm leeches were worse than angry leeches.

Did Reid understand the danger Swansea had posed to all of London? Or did he harbor resentment over what had happened to him? Geoffrey would find out once Reid had him alone in his office, he supposed—as much as he wished he could, he hadn't forgotten what happened last time they fought. Horrifying, that so hungry a vampire could still hold so much strength. If— _when,_ Geoffrey corrected himself, it was only ever a matter of time with these creatures—Reid finally gave over to his hunger, the streets of London would run red. He couldn't ever afford to grow complacent around him, no matter how _harmless_ he might seem.

Geoffrey followed Reid up the stairs, two steps behind, his pulse drumming quick in his veins. The leech could probably smell how fast his heart was beating. When they got to the head doctor's office, freshly adorned with a plaque bearing Reid's name, he held it open and motioned Geoffrey inside with an overly formal gesture. 

Geoffrey shuddered. He couldn't stand having his back to a leech.

"Can't say I like being mocked," he said as he stepped through the door. 

"Would you care to explain what I've done to insult you? Or is it my presence itself you consider a mockery?"

Geoffrey scowled. "The _guest_ routine has to get a little old for you eventually, doesn't it? Or do you talk like that to humans right up 'til the moment you've gotten your teeth in their neck?"

Reid raised an eyebrow, looking deeply unimpressed. "Some of us practice hospitality, McCullum."

"Hospitality." Geoffrey snorted. "Is that what your kind calls it? Well, I've sure met some hospitable leeches in my time, then, inviting the locals over for a nice meal and all the trappings. So damn hospitable they never care to leave again."

He wanted Reid to break, wanted a faceful of furious vampire more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life. It was a stupid impulse, near to suicidal, but...

Reid had spared Geoffrey's life, here in Pembroke, when he had no reason not to make a meal of him; he'd hunted down the source of the epidemic; he offered medicine to every beggar who clutched at the hem of his cloak. It wasn't _right_ for a vampire to be this way. Geoffrey's brother had become a monster when he turned, his father too; Reid wasn't a better person than either of them had been, Geoffrey was damn sure of that. So it was only a question of what exactly lurked behind the kindly doctor facade, and just how deep Reid kept it buried.

He'd never been wrong about a leech. And if some part of him wanted to let his guard down now, to believe that maybe _this_ beast was tamer than all the rest, then that was just one more reason to stay suspicious.

Reid stared at him, his pale dead eyes only barely easier to read than a true corpse's. And then his nostrils flared, and he frowned as he said, "Would you like to keep arguing, or do you want me to take a look at what you're keeping hidden beneath that coat of yours?"

 _Christ._ Of course Reid could smell it on him. Was that how he'd known Geoffrey was here? Or had he heard his voice from a full floor up with that inhuman hearing of his? Neither option was very comforting.

But Reid was right about one thing. As much as Geoffrey hated it, he needed the man's help tonight. He took a seat on one corner of Reid's elaborate desk, deliberately ignoring any of the equally ostentatious chairs in the room. Slowly he unwound the scarf from around his neck—glaring Reid down the whole time, daring him to move—and then unbuttoned his shirt with hands he refused to let falter.

This was perverse; this was _wrong_. He'd been bitten before more times than he could count, on the front lines of the Priwen's assault, but he'd never once willingly made himself vulnerable to a leech. It made him feel queasy in a way he couldn't explain; it left a heat pooling in his stomach and ribs.

Reid didn't comment once while Geoffrey was undressing, not even when his movements revealed the stakes strapped to both his wrists. But when Geoffrey finally pulled his shirt open to show the wound, a low noise slipped from his mouth.

Geoffrey kept his hand near a weapon, just in case that meant hunger, but it was an all-too-human sort of dismay he saw in Reid's face.

"Good Lord, McCullum. How long ago did this happen?"

Geoffrey shifted. "Four days ago. Maybe five. The nights blur together sometimes."

"And you didn't think to have someone check on the wound before tonight? I'm sure you have _some_ doctors working with the Guard of Priwen."

Admittedly it did look rather nasty; it was a deep gouge about six inches long, stretching from ribs to hip, and over the past few days it had gone from a rough-edged but clean enough cut to something red-streaked and bubbling with infection. Still, he didn't appreciate the slight against Priwen.

"Of course I had someone look at it—damn thing's not healing like it should be. Some kind of leech disease." He didn't say it wasn't the first time Priwen had seen this sort of infection; he didn't say that no member of the Guard who'd caught it had ever survived. He wasn't going to let a wound like this take him down. If Reid couldn't (or _wouldn't_ ) help him, he'd figure something else out. It was as simple as that.

Reid didn't seem too worried, which might be a good sign. He approached—palms up, hands back, radiating a meekness that was so far from the truth it was laughable—and leaned in closer to examine the wound.

"Hmm. No wonder it's not healing. It's..." He grimaced. "Well. I'm loathe to diagnose any patient with such an unscientific condition, but the best way I can describe it is to say that it's cursed."

" _Cursed_?"

"It was an Ekon that did this to you, wasn't it?" asked Reid.

"Can't say I put too much stock in the words you lot use to describe yourselves"—monsters naming monsters, in Geoffrey's opinion, like a plague-bearing rat declaring that it was better than a common maggot—"but it was one of your fancy friends, yeah."

Reid scoffed. "I have fewer friends among them than you'd expect. But—yes, that's no surprise. Some Ekon develop a certain... power over blood. This one left a hint of his own within your wound when he struck. Think of it as a parting gift, I suppose. A rather unpleasant one."

"What," snarled Geoffrey. He curled one hand around the wound, imagining some leech's blood mingling with his and infecting his body slowly.

With a sigh, Reid pressed one hand against the bridge of his nose. "I don't mean that you're at any risk of turning. It's—a virus, of sorts, attacking your vitality from within. I can break it, but..." Reid stalled over the end of his sentence, staring at Geoffrey intently.

Nothing good could come of a pause like that. "Spit it out, Reid."

"I'll need to re-open the injury, and thread my own... influence, for lack of a better word, through the wound."

"You want to bite me," Geoffrey said flatly.

Reid didn't respond. His silence was answer enough.

" _Fuck._ " He wanted to storm out. Hell, he wanted to leave one of his stakes in Reid's neck as a parting present just for suggesting it. But he was right about the wound not healing, right about the creature who'd left it—and if a vampire was needed to fix a vampire's brutality, then no wonder the Guard hadn't found a cure on their own yet. No other soldier of Priwen would have ever been foolhardy enough to try _this_. "I swear to god, leech, if this is some trick..."

Reid snorted. "No matter what you might believe, I'm not exactly _eager_ to do this."

"I believe that as much as I believe your charitable act."

At that, Reid turned to look at him. There was something in his eyes that Geoffrey couldn't put a name to. Not quite anger, not quite sadness. Resolve, maybe. 

"Exposing my neck to someone desperate to run a blade through it isn't exactly calming for me." Almost haltingly, he added, "And... truly, I wish that you had not been injured. I don't approve of your Guard's approach, but—I've meet some monsters in my time here, too. I regret that there are those among my kind who need to be hunted."

"Huh," drawled Geoffrey. It was so pathetically soft-hearted he _had_ to mock it, but so deeply earnest that he had no idea how to. "You really are a strange sort of leech, aren't you?" And he tried to peer past it, to see the lie, the hidden dagger behind the offer of healing—but there was nothing there but a doctor in a worn coat, offering his services. "Fine, then," he said, and he drew his own coat the rest of the way off his shoulders. "But don't get any ideas. I'm quick enough with a blade to stop you."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Reid said, and—before Geoffrey could back out, or even brace himself—he lowered his head and oh-so-tenderly fit his teeth to the wound.

" _Ah_ ," Geoffrey gasped. The bite was cold, corpse-cold, and somehow burning hot beneath it. He'd felt it before, of course—as long as he'd spent in the Guard, one leech or another had tried to gnaw on just about every last one of his limbs at some point—but it had never been like this. The gentleness made it strange; there was no fight, no desperate need to tear himself free before the monster drank him dry. Staying still, accepting the needle-sharp intrusion into his body, was harder than he could have ever imagined.

(He could _feel_ the Ekon's infection leaving him, could feel the deep purulent ache recede from his body as Reid's fangs sank in. It was almost disappointing. If this had been a trap, he wouldn't owe Reid a debt.)

The fangs dug in deeper. Reid's tongue probed the edge of the wound, coaxing more blood free. Some instinct-driven part of Geoffrey was convinced Reid would never stop. He'd stay here, his touch soft and his bite timid, and gently drink every last drop of Geoffrey's life out of him.

It was a second and an eternity before Reid finally broke free. He let go with a deep, guttural moan, gasping for air he no longer needed.

"Oh," Geoffrey said. "Look at you."

Reid's eyes were dark and wide, empty with hunger. Blood dripped from his lips to catch in his beard—as Geoffrey watched, his tongue darted out to catch some and draw it into his mouth. Shoulders tense, nostrils flared, body hunched over into a half-animal crouch; he stared at the sluggishly-bleeding wound on Geoffrey's chest, fixated on it like it was the only thing in the world he cared to see.

It was monstrous. Grotesque. The true face of a vampire. Geoffrey ought to have been disgusted. Instead, he felt...

He caught Reid's chin, pulled his head up to stare Reid in the eyes. A perfect mirror of how they'd once looked at each other in the basement of this very hospital. Any control Geoffrey had right now was nothing more than a pathetic illusion. But it still felt good to be the one staring down at Reid this time.

"You want more, don't you?" Geoffrey murmured meanly. "Poor thing. How long has it been since you ate?" Looking at Reid, he felt as though he was caught in a trance no less powerful than the leech's blood-hunger.

Reid bared his bloodstained teeth. "I _suggest_ ," he said, voice humming deep in Geoffrey's brain, "that you do not tempt me."

Geoffrey heard the tones of vampiric _mesmer,_ caught them and shredded them under the force of his own will. "And if I do?" he asked. "If I want to see what kind of beast you turn into when you're _tempted_?"

Reid growled, nothing in him even close to human anymore. He surged upward, closing the gap between them with terrifying speed, and pressed his mouth to Geoffrey's.

At first Geoffrey was sure it was an attack, some bite so bizarre even he'd never heard of it. He fumbled for a weapon, grabbed at Reid's shoulder to push him away—and then Reid's tongue swiped against his teeth, licking into his mouth, and Geoffrey thought, _Oh._

A smart man would have pulled out a stake. A sane man would have run away. Geoffrey, always neither, took hold of Reid's hair with one hand, the lapels of his coat with the other, and turned the kiss into something angry and bruising and fierce. He could taste his own blood on Reid's tongue, could feel his skin warming Reid's frigid body. He wanted to fight, he wanted to take control, he wanted—

He wanted _more_. What blood he hadn't given to Reid was coursing through his veins, pooling in his stomach, and he rolled his hips against Reid before he could even think about what he was doing.

"Ah," Reid groaned, dragging himself in closer to match Geoffrey's movements: hands tangled together, mouths caught in something that was more a bite than a kiss—

Reid wrenched himself away, and before Geoffrey could react he'd cloaked himself in shadow and reappeared just out of arm's reach. His eyes were wide. His face flushed with borrowed blood. "McCullum," he said, sounding shaken, "I apologize. I didn't intend..."

"Fuck," Geoffrey said. He blinked, coming back to himself slowly. He felt like he was coming down from a battle high: adrenaline pumping through his veins, heart pounding wildly, realizing only after the danger was past just how stupid he'd been.

During a fight, _stupid_ usually meant exposing himself to a leech's attack or leaving his back exposed. Either of those felt much less terrifying than what he'd done just now. He wasn't sure whether he was more furious about Reid pulling out one of his shadowy leech tricks right in front of him, or everything else that had just happened. The bastard had kissed him, smeared Geoffrey's own blood all over his mouth, pressed his corpse hands all over him... and Geoffrey had sat there and let him. Welcomed it, even.

He wanted to believe it was some new form of vampiric suggestion. Finding out the beasts had powers beyond anything he'd known would, in this moment, be less horrifying than knowing he'd done this willingly. But he wouldn't have survived this long without knowing his own body; the heat coursing through him now was no less real than lines on his palms or the scar on his knee that ached on rainy days.

Reid was pompous, posh, disgustingly self-effacing for a monster. He was a leech; he was a _man_. And Geoffrey wanted him more than he'd ever wanted anyone. Even now, some instinct-driven part of him—the same part that controlled him whenever he lead his people into battle or cut a leech's head free from its body—was urging him to close the distance between them, grab Reid and press him against the far wall and continue exactly where he'd left off.

He could barely hold back the urge to laugh. He'd wanted to know what exactly was under Reid's mask, didn't he? And now he'd learned—for the price of uncovering something about himself that he desperately wished would have had the good sense to stay hidden.

Going to a leech for help, talking with one, lusting after one... only in hindsight could he see the lines and how clearly he'd stepped over them with Reid. He'd run people out of Priwen for less than what he'd done here tonight.

Geoffrey ran a hand down his face. "Bastard," he said to Reid, without much anger in it.

"I'm sorry," Reid said again, and then, with barely-restrained longing, "Your blood is..."

"I don't want to hear anything you have to say about my blood."

"Yes. Of course."

Reid was watching him him intently. There was something fearful in his expression. Geoffrey was confused a moment—if anything he should be triumphant, shouldn't he? He should be gloating over finally striking a blow to the great anti-vampire fanatic's armor on a level so far beyond the physical—and then he realized. He thought himself the predator in this.

It would be easy to pretend. To blame this all on Reid, on some vile monster's trick. It would spare Geoffrey his dignity. 

But it would be beneath him.

"Reid. You didn't..." He sighed. "Stop playing the martyr for half a second, all right? Not everything gets to fall on your shoulders."

"I lost control," Reid said.

"Did you see me trying to push you off? And don't try to flatter yourself—your little tricks aren't good enough to snare my mind."

Reid went still the way only a vampire could. He blinked at Geoffrey, mutely, and then he said, "Ah." 

Warily he stepped closer, each movement careful and slow, until he was in arm's reach again. There was a red tinge to his eyes now—Geoffrey's blood, running through him—and he was looking at him like...

Geoffrey swallowed. He'd assumed Reid's actions had come from a leech's wild hunger, that he'd kissed Geoffrey out of simple animal bloodlust. Seeing Reid now, he was suddenly less than sure. The hunger in his eyes was an all-too-human sort. It mirrored Geoffrey's own.

If Reid hadn't pulled back, Geoffrey wondered, how far would they both have gone? He could try to find out. He could grab Reid now, pull him in closer and...

 _And_ , he reminded himself, he was the leader of the Priwen; Reid was the beast he was meant to hunt. Nothing more. He wouldn't betray his people any more than he already had tonight.

He pressed a hand to the wound on his chest. Already it felt cleaner somehow. The sickly heat and the swelling were gone, though it still bled slowly. "If you think you can control yourself, _leech_ "—he snarled the word out like a knife, harsh and deliberate, and watched Reid flinch at the sound of it—"I'd appreciate it if you could finish fixing me up."

For a moment he was sure Reid would protest. Some traitorous part of him wished Reid would. But the only thing he did was take a quiet breath, then close his eyes and rub at his temples. When he opened them again, the redness remained but the animal edge to them was gone. He was just _Jonathan Reid_ , prodigious doctor, showing Geoffrey the same calm professional mask he showed to every citizen of London who walked through his hospital doors.

It felt wrong. But Geoffrey couldn't say as much without being the worst sort of hypocrite, so he kept silent and let Reid tend to his wound.

His hands were cold, but they warmed as he touched Geoffrey's skin. His touch was professional—delicate, even—despite the rough callouses on his fingers. Anyone else might assume those were from his time in the war; Geoffrey, who'd more than once seen him take a hacksaw to packs of maddened skal, knew better. 

It was a problem, how much he knew about Reid. How much he cared. If Reid ever did lose himself to vampirism, would Geoffrey even have the strength to put him down?

( _If_ , not _when_ , no matter what he tried to tell himself. He'd spared Geoffrey, his greatest enemy, when he had no reason to leave him alive; he'd brought him up here tonight and tended to him when he could have let him die. A leech, yes, but one with more humanity in him than most men Geoffrey knew.)

When Reid was finally done—wound disinfected and cleaned, the bite marks carefully bandaged over—he stepped back. There was blood on his hands, and for a moment he stared at it as if he was going to lick them clean. ( _Fuck_ , Geoffrey thought.) But he pulled his attention away and wiped his fingers with a cloth instead, and did not look at Geoffrey while he was doing it.

Geoffrey stood and began buttoning his shirt. Reid's wound dressing had a military precision to it, the bandages tight and even. He could already tell it would hold up well when he was fighting. If they'd met in other circumstances, if Geoffrey had somehow managed to find him before he'd been turned, Reid could have been an _incredible_ asset to Priwen. 

He shut that thought down before it could get away from him. There was no use dwelling on other lives. They both were what they were.

"Reid," he said, and then, swallowing a half-dozen other things he wanted to say: "Thanks."

"It was my pleasure," Reid said, a little stiffly. Once, Geoffrey would have said something about the blood still flaked on the corner of Reid's mouth and what exactly sort of _pleasure_ he'd taken—but that would open up everything he didn't want to talk about, so he didn't.

Before Geoffrey could walk out the door, though, Reid stopped him with a word.

"McCullum," he said. "I... Ekon-inflicted wounds are tricky things. If this one continues to bother you, you should make sure to come back. I'll be happy to look at it again."

The wound was already feeling better. Geoffrey didn't think it would worsen—and from the way Reid was avoiding Geoffrey's eyes, he didn't think Reid thought it would worsen either.

He should say no. He _needed_ to say no. Anything else would be a betrayal: not so much staring into the abyss as throwing himself headfirst into its depths.

"Sure, doc." Geoffrey grinned and gave him a lazy salute as he walked out the door. "I need any more free medical help, I'll be right here at your door."


End file.
